The KDE PIM Team, Trolltech and Scalix are working on a Groupware connector for the commercial Scalix server. And a new version of the Kolab KDE client has also been released.

The KDE PIM developer mailing list reveals that it will take just a couple of patches to the Scalix Groupware server for Kontact to be able to use it.

Kontact's server/client communications structures are now very similar for both Kolab and Scalix, and this is why the developers have decided to add the source code to the Enterprise branch of KDE PIM first. The developers maintain a customized version of Kontact for Kolab Server in the Enterprise branch, and a new release appeared just a few days ago. The Kolab KDE client, which is based on KDE Version 3.3, targets enterprise use and Kolab compatibility: the latest version is 2.1.8. Besides bugfixes in IMAP and LDAP handling the new version is the first with the ability to automatically filter emails in Groupware folders. However, shortly after the release issues occurred with the filtering of new messages in public folders, leading to a recommendation by the Kolab Team that administrators should wait for the new 2.1.9 version (due for release shortly).

Along with GNOME, KDE is the most popular Linux desktop: the current version is 3.5.7, although beta versions of KDE 4 are already available. Kolab is a completely free Open Source Groupware server, which was developed with support from BSI. Not all of the Scalix Groupware server source code is publically available. The server is based on HP's Openmail, and offers Groupware functionality for Outlook and Web mail in large enterprises. Scalix was recently acquired by Xandros.

This column looks into projects and current affairs in the world of free software from the perspective of the GNU Project and the FSF. In this issue, I’ll focus on Comspari and the EU decision on software patents.

The eighth annual KDE PIM developer meeting in Osnabrück, Germany started out with an extended snowball fight among the Scottish, German and Dutch contingencies. That actual work was being done was evidenced by enhancements to Akonadi, KDE 4.4 and 4.5, and planned further development of the Kontact groupware client.